The Journey From Coffee Plant to Cup.
From Coffee Plant to Cup
Have you ever made your morning cup of Joe, and wondered what journey those beans have been on? Who’s hands have touched and transported them?
Maybe you haven’t and this is the first you’re thinking about it… Either way, in today’s Refuge Coffee Blog we are going to be discussing the complete journey from cherry to brew that a coffee bean goes on.
Where Coffee Begins: The Plant and the Region
Coffee Plant
Coffee plant with cherries
There are two main plants used in coffee. Coffea arabica makes up 60% of coffee production. It is believed to have first made itself known in Ethiopia and Yemen. Here at Refuge, we use Arabica beans due to their quality and their typical flavor profile. Arabica tends to be more acidic, less bitter and fruitier.
Coffea Robusta makes up the other 40% of coffee production. It leads to less acidic, more bitter and woodier notes. It’s more often seen in commercial bags of coffee.
Coffee Region
Now let's talk about regions. You might see country names on bags and wonder what they mean. The flavor of beans is greatly affected by climate, elevation, and location. This is called its origin or single origin.
Higher elevation often means higher quality; the coolness in the air slows down the growth of the plant forcing it to focus on production. This means the plant has time to fully develop flavors and complexity.
Most of the coffee we stock is grown at 4,000ft or above. Costa Rica and Nicaragua have citrusy, vanilla and nutty flavors and are grown in that range. Our Ethiopia, Guatemala and Columbia beans are grown 5,000ft and above; giving them a more fruity, spicy, and floral flavor.
Life on a Coffee Farm: Growing the Beans
Take a moment to imagine it's the crack of dawn and you’ve stepped outside of your home on a coffee farm. The ground around your feet is wet with morning dew and the air is fresh and inviting. You know that the temperature will rise soon and you’ve got to get started.
During the coffee harvesting season, most mornings begin with picking the cherries of the coffee plants. There are several different methods of harvesting, but the two most commonly used are hand picking and mechanized picking.
Hand Picking
When hand-picking, farmers are able to grab individual ripe cherries to ensure every bean has fully developed. This method is more time-consuming and requires extra farmhands, but allows defects to be thrown out. The more defects in a group of beans cause the quality to decrease. This lowers the coffee grade and forces the farmers to sell for less money.
Mechanized Technique
In the mechanized technique, large machines typically collect all of the cherries from a plant; including unripe, bitter berries. Now, if farmers invest in post-processing equipment they can lessen the chance of a drop in quality. The mechanized technique is especially helpful in countries where labor shortage is prevalent; such as Brazil which is currently the largest coffee producing country and has been for over 150 years.
Harvesting and Sorting the Coffee Cherries
Coffee Farmer sorting through coffee cherries.
Once cherries, often on the higher parts of the bush, have reached a deep red almost plum color, farmers collect them from the plant. If not hand picked, the farmers will put all of the seeds into a water basin to sort out which are ripe, the unripe ones will be thrown out.
For the optimal cup of coffee, you want the best beans. Too ripe and underripe both create unpleasant flavors that farmers make sure don’t end up in your mug. Overripe cherries will turn dark brown and begin to ferment leaving a vinegar flavor sitting on your tongue - not enjoyable. With such a meticulous task, the quality is in the details.
How Coffee is Processed: Washed, Natural, and Honey Methods
There are several coffee processing methods, including hybrid methods, but here at Refuge we stick to buying mainly three.
Natural Process
A natural process allows the cherries to dry out in the sun. Farmers have to frequently turn the cherries to ensure they don’t begin to mold or ferment in the sun. Once dry, the outer husk and dried fruit are mechanically removed. Attention to detail means this can be a frustrating method, but it is the most traditional and widely performed in areas where water is harder to access. Because the cherries sit in the sun, any impurities can be stuck to the cherries and infuse their unpleasant flavors to the seeds, meaning the farmers have less to sell.
Washed Process
In areas that water is less scarce, a washed process is preferred. A machine called a depulper removes all of the sticky flesh from the seed before the drying process. This reduces the chances of something going wrong, but it is often more expensive. After the cherries are washed they are left to dry.
Honey Process
A third method known as a honey process is similar to the wash method; however, the depulper only removes a specific percentage of the flesh. The fruit mucilage is called Miel in Spanish or otherwise “Honey”. This method allows for less water consumption, but leaves a higher risk of fermentation.
Drying, Milling, and Exporting
At some point in the coffee production process, all of the seeds have to be dried. There are two main methods for this. One is drying out in the sun on raised bed/ patios to allow easy air flow. When dried like this the washed and honey processes take longer than the natural process.
A second method is using a mechanical dryer that is especially beneficial in humid climates. Once the seeds are dried, the farmers must remove the ’parchment’ layer and are now able to sort the beans accordingly.
Beans are first sorted by size and then sorted by grades. Grade 1 (which is the only grade we buy) has essentially no defects; otherwise known as ‘specialty grade’. Once graded, coffee is often shipped internationally via sea freight. Then we wait anxiously for shipment day. UPS shows up in a massive delivery truck and drops 1,200 lbs of beans at our doorstep.
Time to get roasting.
Roasting:Bringing Out the Flavor
The roasting process is a bit more complex than you may think.
Jim, owner of Refuge Coffee, roasting a batch of coffee.
As beans are heated up in the roaster, they induce the Maillard (not the duck) reaction where amino acids and reducing sugars interact to create the rich brown and aromatic flavors we associate with beans. This is also the same effect that gives bread its brown toasty color.
When roasting, three types of profiles can be made. Light, Medium and Dark.
A light roast is done the fastest; it typically has a lighter tea-like profile and has the most caffeine. A dark roast has the least amount of caffeine due to it slowly being roasted out. It tends to have a deep, chocolatey and bitter profile; often preferred by diners. A medium roast is typically what our beans end up being.
We don’t roast for a profile, we roast to whatever fits the origin of beans the best. Our Desert Rose ends being a little lighter than our Defender or Freightline, but all are still considered medium.
Brewing: Your Part in the Journey
Now you may be thinking, once the roasting is done shouldn’t every cup taste the same? Not exactly.
Make a pour over with your whole bean coffee.
A lot can affect the flavor profile; including grind size, water temperature and even brewing methods. Imagine you’ve ground beans to the size of sand. Water can easily get to the center of each ground and evenly extract the flavor; however, the finer the grounds the more pressure is needed which can easily lead to an over extracted, bitter flavor.
Now instead imagine the beans are the size of tennis balls, there’s a wider gap in between each ground allowing water to slip through and not extract all of the desired flavor. So finding the sweet spot is important for every cup. And unfortuneately this changes frequently, due to thousands of variables. Any step in the coffee journey being done lazily can result in an unpleasant drink, which is why supporting quality from the farm to the final cup is so important.
There are hundreds of brewing methods one can try at home. If you prefer convenience, an auto drip machine like a Mr.Coffee is perfect. If you prefer to experiment with coffee to bring out certain flavors AND have more time on your hands, something like a pour-over or Moka pot would be great. There are benefits to every brewing method, so we encourage you to explore whatever interests you.
Why it Matters: Quality, Ethics & Enjoyment
When picking your coffee beans, knowing where they are sourced from is important.
50lb bags of Green Coffee are ready to be shipped off to local roasteries.
Similar to organic labels, you want to make sure your beans haven’t been grown in pesticides or other harmful chemicals. It’s also important to know that the farms you’re buying from are protecting their employees and guaranteeing their safety.
The middle-man company we buy our green beans from, Cafe Imports, makes sure the farmers are getting paid for their work. A lot of commercial coffee companies will pay $1 per lbs, while we typically pay around $4, meaning we sell our products at a higher price, but we’re also supporting these small farmers and their livelihood; thus, also helping fund future crops.
Maintenance can be expensive during the off season but is essential to the quality of the coffee plants.
Taste the Difference at Refuge Coffee in Fairhope
Now that you’ve read about the coffee journey, why not enjoy a cup at one of our cozy locations? If you’re in Fairhope and searching for coffee near me - we got you! Stop in and try our new Wajamala single-origin beans from Indonesia. Maybe you can taste the subtle grapefruit and malt notes.
Not in Fairhope? No problem, you can order online and we will ship it to you anywhere in the USA!
From seed to cup we aim to bring you the highest quality coffee. For a more visual journey through coffee, check out this short story.
